Electric Vehicles-Infrastructure

[myglaren]

If it can be done at old fashioned liquid fuel pumps that you can stick a card in to pay for it, then surely adopting the same method for electrons should be simple enough.

[Mandrake]

The report is January 2020 Simon, and "launched" Mid February...pretty much bang up to date, and they are proposals to be considered by the Government to implement or not as the case may be. The proposal as stated is for all new installations from "Spring 2020".

Ok good, maybe they had a change of heart because last I heard last year the requirement for contactless had been dropped from the recommendations, much to the chagrin of most EV evangalists.

I really hope this is true because mandatory availability of pay as you go via credit/debit card at a rapid charger is critical for widespread EV adoption IMHO.

If networks want to offer their RFID cards, smart phone apps, loyalty schemes blah blah - fine, as long as any random person can still roll up to a charger, swipe their debit card and be charging in seconds without being required to use these other methods of payment or create or register accounts etc. They need to realise that most people simply don't want to be doing this to charge their car and there are plenty of technophobes (who still need to drive) who would simply be unable to do it.

Unlike pay at the pump for Diesel and Petrol where you need a full card reader and PIN pad (since fuel can potentially go up to £99 for pay at the pump) you only really need contactless with it's £30 limit because £30 even at 35p/kWh is still 85kWh of energy which is bigger than the battery of most EV's and even in an EV with a larger battery would theoretically take it about 342 miles at 4 miles/kWh...

[Mandrake]

If it can be done at old fashioned liquid fuel pumps that you can stick a card in to pay for it, then surely adopting the same method for electrons should be simple enough.

There are already charging networks like Instavolt that have contactless payment at the charger. I wave my debit card at the machine, plug the cable into the car, press a button and it starts charging - all in about 30 seconds and with no fuss. Works perfectly and this is how it should be.

However the majority of networks you have to use either an RFID card (which you have to order ahead of time, including giving them your name, address, email address, payment details etc) or a smartphone app. (where you have to create an account if you don't already have one, which means giving your name and email address, confirming email address, adding payment details etc)

Both these scenarios mean that you could roll up to the charger of a network you have never used before on a rainy night, and have to fiddle around downloading a smartphone app, creating an account, adding your debit card details etc, then use that app to start the charge. Completely ridiculous and many people simply could not manage to do that, frankly, and I believe this is a major hurdle to the adoption of EV's by the general public.

The legislation is about forcing all charging providers to offer a contactless payment option. (Possibly in addition to their other methods) They don't want to do it because card readers increase the cost of the charger, would require expensive retrofit to all existing chargers, and make it difficult for them to track your activities. Just like a supermarket discount card lets the supermarket chain track when, where and what you buy, the charging networks somehow think this information is useful to them vs anonymous debit card transactions.

If they want to provide both a "loyalty" card with discounts where you set up an account with them, AND pay as you go contactless payment from any random person who arrives at the charger, I'm fine with that. However I think this is one of those situations where the government needs to intervene and say "you MUST provide contactless payment at the charger", for the good of EV adoption and furthering the overall agenda towards greener transport.

[NewcastleFalcon]

The report is January 2020 Simon, and "launched" Mid February...pretty much bang up to date, and they are proposals to be considered by the Government to implement or not as the case may be. The proposal as stated is for all new installations from "Spring XXXX".

Simon...Can you do me a favour and correct my boob? You quoted me before I had the chance to edit out the incorrect date!. That should of course be 2020!

Regards Neil

[NewcastleFalcon]

Its not difficult at all to meet the basic requirement of offering payment by bank card, and all new installations can easily meet this requirement.

Here's an example

The New ones installed by ENGENIE at Alnwick Marks and Sparks just off the A1

and the message reads
Pay as You Go cost 36p/kWh
No Connection Fee
Normal Contactless Payment or
Download the Engenie App

nf own work

Three cables Chademo 50kW DC, CCS (50kW DC) Type 2 (22kW AC)

REgards Neil

[NewcastleFalcon]

Despite similar names Engie, and Geniepoint (they are one and the same..and a large French energy company part owned by the State of France) are different from the UK company Engenie responsible for the Alnwick Installation. I suspect Engenie will build up a bit of a network of rapid chargers and be swallowed up by one of the bigger players, with their investors hoping to cash in on any takeover.

Even the names are confusing!

screenshot

The Engie/Geniepoint chargers are quite well distributed around our days out territory around the North-east/Cumbria/Yorks, many are at Morrisons Stores. About a tenner of the £20 so far spent on our EV electricity was spent on a couple of visits to Morrisons at Elland in West Yorks, and my Polar RFID card got linked in with GeniePoint at that time so could be a useful thing on days out.

REgards Neil

[NewcastleFalcon]

Update on the UK infrastructure grants schemes from the DOT/OLEV

https://www.gov.uk/government/news/upda ... ts-schemes
Electric vehicle homecharge scheme(EVHS)-Grant has been reduced fron £500 to £350
Workplace charging scheme(WCS)-Grant has been reduced from £500 to £350
On Street Residential Chargepoint Scheme(ORCS)-Grant reduced from £7,500 to £6,500

The spin is reducing grant allows more installations to benefit...

...and as has been the case for all installations after 1st July 2019, accessing the grant involves enforcing conditions, and only "smart chargers" qualify for the grant, and de facto an associated "smart" meter. Smart in this context means "internet connected".

https://assets.publishing.service.gov.u ... y-2019.pdf

This type of thing

screenshot Minimum technical specification –Electric Vehicle Homecharge Scheme(EVHS

REgards Neil

[NewcastleFalcon]

Despite similar names Engie, and Geniepoint (they are one and the same..and a large French energy company part owned by the State of France) are different from the UK company Engenie responsible for the Alnwick Installation. I suspect Engenie will build up a bit of a network of rapid chargers and be swallowed up by one of the bigger players, with their investors hoping to cash in on any takeover.

Even the names are confusing!


The Engie/Geniepoint chargers are quite well distributed around our days out territory around the North-east/Cumbria/Yorks, many are at Morrisons Stores. About a tenner of the £20 so far spent on our EV electricity was spent on a couple of visits to Morrisons at Elland in West Yorks, and my Polar RFID card got linked in with GeniePoint at that time so could be a useful thing on days out.

REgards Neil

With some of the NCC Chargers being out of action, totally switched off....probably way down not unexpectedly on a priority list for NCC at the moment, had a visit to check out a new Charger at a recently opened Morrisons Store. They partner with "Geniepoint" and currently its £1.00 connection and £0.30 per kWh. None of the instructions mention a RFID card, but the Polar card which I linked in with GeniePoint at Elland did work fine. So paid for my electricity today so the running total is probably £25 for 5,500 miles so far with the Leaf.

Nf own work

Regards Neil

[myglaren]

Recycling BEV batteries.

[white exec]

Recycling BEV batteries.

Reassuring report about what could be a massive problem.
We dare not repeat the tragic mistakes of the global dumping of waste plastics.

[NewcastleFalcon]

Recycling BEV batteries.

Reassuring report about what could be a massive problem.
We dare not repeat the tragic mistakes of the global dumping of waste plastics.

While BEV's are look set to dominate, research does continue on fuel cell vehicles, and for all, the recycling of the product whether battery of fuel cell stack, is a key industry which needs to develop. I wonder if it is one area the fuel cell stack may have some advantage over the current Li-ion battery. You can read vested interest articles which would suggest that to be the case, and no doubt other vested interest articles which take the opposite view.

viewtopic.php?p=650821#p650821

REgards Neil

[NewcastleFalcon]

Used the chargeplace Scotland card (£20/year) for a free Chademo Charge at Jedburgh today.

download/file.php?id=19472&t=1

Nf Own Work

Regards Neil

[Mandrake]

Stumbled across this article which I thought was quite interesting:

https://www.driving.co.uk/news/roads/uk ... ays-study/

Short version of the article - Ecotricity have been voted the worst charging network in the UK, and have their head in the sand about it in their official response!

The best charge point providers list near the bottom of the article seems about right - Tesla (supercharger network) coming in 1st, Instavolt 2nd and Chargeplace Scotland 3rd. Ecotricity at the bottom in 10th place...

When the winter range of my Ion started to get a bit short I started topping up on the way home from work using Instavolt - although they're 35p/kWh they offer contactless payment, are usually installed in at least pairs of chargers (redundancy, less queuing if there is another EV driver there) and are very reliable. I have never yet failed to get a charge in the probably >100 times I've used them.

On two occasions one of the two chargers was out of order but I was able to use the other one. I reported the fault and it was fixed within a day or two. (Compare that to some other networks including CPS and Ecotricity where chargers can remain broken for weeks or months at a time...)

Even though Charge Place Scotland have the most chargers in Scotland and many are still free, Instavolt are usually my go to choice. The small increase in cost is justified by the convienince and reliability.

[NewcastleFalcon]

It's fortunate that on days out in general we are pretty flexible in our plans. Went for the thrill of heading for a new charger yesterday afternoon one of the 7kWh posts, for just a little 1hr's charge while having coffee and cake and a wander about by the river to get us comfortably to the next charging area with plenty in hand where a rapid charge would get us back home with miles to spare.

You get into a mindset of lets assume that the chargepoint you intend to use is going to be out of order, and have alternatives in mind. Yes and that one yesterday was out of order in terms of it read my polar plus card then checked the authorisation list, and yes rejected the card.

Being a single chargepoint in a remote location which was logoed up "Chargeyourcar" with two out of date contact numbers, I phoned BP Chargecard (who took over polar and chargeyourcar) but the chaps couldnt communicate with the post to set it up. Fault reported and confidence sapped in that location ever being relied upon to be working.

Our alternative was an 8 mile drive away from the intended day out route so just went there and abandoned the original plans. Still the alternative was reasonably scenic.



All in all 8 months on into the Electric Car experience a few hiccups like that and in general it would be nice if there were a few more dotted around so that you could forget about wondering whether the "fuel station" was working or not or if you had the right card or app to use it would be useful. Not having a smart phone effectively excludes me from using all of the Lidl ones, although any new installations should comply with PAYG use with a bankcard, if the intentions and recommendations have been followed through.


REgards Neil

[NewcastleFalcon]

A first today pulled up by the side of some KIA PLug in vehicle whuch was using the AC plug, and fully expecting the Chademo DC rapid Charger not to be able to be used, just plugged in to give it a try, and hey presto it worked and worked pretty much as per usual.

Not sure what state of play the KIA charging session was in but it was pugged in when we arrived and still plugged in when we left. It looked like the session was ongoing but no display on the touch screen just a little icon whirling around.

KIA charging buddy

REgards Neil